Wendy Perla Kurtz Headshot

Wendy Perla Kurtz

Continuing Lecturer & Project Scientist

Office: Royce 323

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Wendy Perla Kurtz, PhD, is a Continuing Lecturer and Project Scientist in the Department of Digital Humanities at UCLA, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses and oversees the Digital Humanities Graduate Certificate Program. She received her PhD in Hispanic Languages and Literatures and a graduate certificate in Digital Humanities from UCLA.

Dr. Kurtz’s research brings together digital humanities, cultural memory, and human rights. Her work examines the legacies of the Spanish Civil War and Francoist repression, particularly the cultural and ritual dimensions of mass grave exhumations. This research focuses on the recovery and identification of victims of political violence and on the rights of families and communities to reckon with histories of repression. It also examines how these processes are mediated through practices of mourning and commemoration, as well as through literature, film, photography, and public discourse. She also uses digital mapping to study the spatial politics of remembrance, tracing memory sites and cultural networks associated with the Civil War and dictatorship. Her most recent project, the Interconnected Histories Initiative/Iniciativa de Historias Interconectadas (IHI), develops collaborative digital infrastructure for connecting dispersed archival collections, datasets, research projects, and memory initiatives related to the war and its aftermath.

As a Project Scientist, Dr. Kurtz also supports collaborative digital scholarship across the humanities. She co-directs the Digital Humanities Research Excellerator and works with faculty and students to conceptualize and develop digital research and pedagogy projects, with particular interests in spatial humanities, cultural heritage, and the ways digital methods and platforms shape scholarly interpretation.

Education

  • PhD, Hispanic Languages and Literatures. University of California, Los Angeles. 2017.
  • BA, Spanish and Psychology. Claremont McKenna College. 2002.

Research

  • 20th & 21st-century Peninsular Literature and Culture
  • Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Literature; Critical Mapping
  • Linked Open Data
  • Network Analysis
  • Social Media Analysis
  • Cultural Studies
  • Memory Studies

Selected Publications

Co-Editor. Reviews in Digital Humanities. Special issue on The Spanish Civil War and Francoist Repression. Coedited by Ana-Maria Alarcón Jiménez, Andrea Davis, and Wendy Kurtz. Forthcoming.

Book Chapter. Zubiaurre, Maite, and Wendy Perla Kurtz. “Digitizing Erotica: A Virtual Wunderkammer: Sexual Cultures in Early Twentieth-Century Spain.” Towards the Digital History of the Other Silver Age Spain Production, Storage, Use, and Dissemination, edited by Dolores Romero López and Jeffrey Zamostny, Peter Lang Verlag, 2022, pp. 107-122.

Article. Waligora, Margaret, et al. “Building the Digital Scholar Lab: A Retrospective.” Interdisciplinary Digital Engagement in Arts & Humanities (IDEAH), vol 2, iss. 2, 2022, np. https://doi.org/10.21428/f1f23564.c51aea2e.

Article. “Mediating Memory: Mass Grave Recovery and Digital Culture in the Iberian Peninsula,” Bulletin for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies, 43.1 (2018), pp. 150-192, https://doi.org/10.26431/0739-182X.1287.

Book Chapter. “Visualizing Mass Grave Recovery: Ritual, Digital Culture and Geographic Information Systems.” Public Humanities and Spanish Civil War: Connected and Contested Histories, edited by Alison Ribeiro de Menezes, Antonio Cazorla-Sánchez and Adrian Shubert, Palgrave MacMillan, 2018, pp. 163-188.

Book Review. “Review of Sara J. Brenneis, Spaniards in Mauthausen: Representations of a Nazi Concentration Camp, 1940-2015,” Bulletin for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies, 44.1, art. 24 (2019), pp. 204-206. https://doi.org/10.26431/0739-182X.1347.

Interview. Chamberlin, Foster, host. “Episode 26. Digitally Mapping the Mass Graves of the Spanish Civil War with Wendy Perla Kurtz.” Historias: The Spanish History Podcast, 1 April, 2020.

Edited Book. Retana, Álvaro. Cuentos de Álvaro Retana (Las Locas de Postín; Los Ambiguos; Lolita, Buscadora de Emociones; El Tonto), edited by Maite Zubiaurre, Audrey Harris, and Wendy Kurtz, Stockcero, 2013.

Recent Presentations

  • “Integrating Efforts: Building a Centralized Digital Research Infrastructure for Spanish Civil War and Francoist Studies.” 54th Annual Conference: The Association for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies. University of Maryland, College Park. June 6, 2025.
  • Conference Co-Organizer. “Towards a Spanish Civil War and Francoist Repression Digital Research Infrastructure.” Centre d’Estudis sobre Dictadures i Democràcies (Center for Studies on Dictatorships and Democracies), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. November 20-21, 2023.
  • “Reimaginando Cartografías Virtuales: Mapeando la recuperación de fosas comunes de la Guerra Civil Española y la dictadura franquista”. Centre d’Estudis sobre Dictadures i Democràcies (Center for Studies on Dictatorships and Democracies), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. November 21, 2023.
  • “Exploring Digital Archives.” UC Love Data Week. Virtual Conference. Co-presenter: Anthony Caldwell. February 15, 2023.
  • “Supra-Institutional Collaborations in Times of COVID: An Extensible Model for Digital Project Development.” Roundtable. The Association for Computers and the Humanities Conference. July 23, 2021.
  • “Building Bridges: Pedagogical Strategies for Introducing Digital Humanities in the Undergraduate and Graduate Classroom.” Poster Presentation. Digital Humanities 2020. ADHO Virtual Conference. Co-author: Sarah Ketchley. July 2020.
  • “Putting Digital Humanities in Historical Journals” (Panelist). 134th Annual Meeting: American Historical Association. New York, New York. January 6, 2020.

Digtial Projects

Commonly Taught Courses

  • DH101: Introduction to Digital Humanities
  • DH131/231: Geospatial Humanities: Digital Mapping & Critical GIS
  • DH150/250: Digital Storytelling
  • DH187: Redefining LA
  • DH250: Professional Trajectories: DH Methods in Practice

Affiliations